This Way Outdoors

Headed For A Hike In The New England Woods? These Books Can Be Your Guide

June 10, 2001|By STEVE GRANT; Courant Staff Writer

Mud season is past, and nature is still fresh. The leaves on the trees are pristine; the insects have not had their way yet. The temperatures are pleasant.

It's June, one of those ideal months for hiking in New England, where it can seem that every mountain has a trail, every ridgeline a footpath.

Which explains why guidebooks to New England trails are a boom industry. Check the bookstacks at the outfitters and bookshops, and you'll find dozens of titles, all promising to get you from here to there.

All have some merit, but some are better than others.

Here's a look at some of the more helpful hiking information available between two covers, starting with Connecticut.

The I-beam of Connecticut hiking literature is the ``Connecticut Walk Book'' (Connecticut Forest and Park Association, $18). Now in its 18th edition, it has been around practically forever. It is graphically challenged, and the text is Yankee frugal -- don't expect a lot of adjectives.

The ``Walk Book'' isn't going to tell you what wildflowers you'll see on this trail, or that in spring you can spot a hooded warbler in the trailside laurel on that trail. The Connecticut Forest and Park Association seems to assume you want to discover these things yourself. You will have to be content when the ``Walk Book'' grudgingly discloses there are ``nice views to the west.'' That's as effusive as the ``Walk Book'' gets.

Having said that, it also should be said that the ``Walk Book'' is indispensable. If you hike in Connecticut, you want it. It was the CFPA that early last century painstakingly worked out the arrangements with landowners to create the state's Blue Trail system. The organization maintains that network, now 700 miles of trails, entirely with volunteer help. The trails are open to the public without charge, and the ``Walk Book'' is the guide to every foot of them. On a fall day when the foliage is peaking and the summit of Bear Mountain in Salisbury is a hikers' convention, you can always pick up the ``Walk Book'' and find some section of one of the blue trails where there is a chance you'll have peace and quiet. Just don't count on a very good map.

The association, incidentally, is in the process of creating new digital maps of the entire trail system, and future editions are expected to have far superior graphics.

Most of the other hiking books for Connecticut draw in part on the blue-blazed trails in the ``Walk Book,'' sometimes suggesting day hikes or half-day hikes over portions of longer trails like the Metacomet, in north-central Connecticut.

``Nature Walks in Connecticut'' (Appalachian Mountain Club Books, $14.95), is the antithesis of the ``Walk Book.'' If the ``Walk Book'' is taciturn, ``Nature Walks in Connecticut'' is a blabbermouth. Trail descriptions can run to five or six pages, detailing which wildflowers, birds and trees can be seen where and when. It can be a little much, but some readers will welcome this detail. Maps are good.

Another venerable guide is ``50 Hikes in Connecticut,'' by David, Gerry and Sue Hardy (The Countryman Press, $15), now in its fourth edition. This guide is part of a series and includes a nice mix of hikes, some shorter, some longer, with good descriptive text that highlights flora, fauna, geology and history. Trail maps superimpose trail routes over topographic maps, which can be helpful. For someone who hikes once in a while, this would be a good choice.

``Short Nature Walks in Connecticut,'' (Globe Pequot Press, $10.95) by Eugene Keyarts, was first published in 1979, making it another of the long-lived. As the title indicates, it emphasizes shorter hikes, often under 2 miles. You'll find a mix of habitats, some coastal, some forested. Maps are clear, the text helpful, but a distance legend would be an improvement.

Farther Afield

A hiking guide professing to cover all of New England is a tall order, but Michael Lanza does a laudable job in ``New England Hiking,'' (Foghorn Outdoors, $18.95). For those who will make shelf space for but one hiking guide, this is the one you want. There are no maps to individual trails, and the text sticks to the highlights of a trail's history, flora and fauna. But what it does, it does well. It provides directions to and a good capsule description of just about every trail you're likely to want to hike in New England, with telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and mail addresses for organizations that can provide more detailed information.All of the big hikes are here, like Katahdin in Maine and Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

``Hiking Southern New England'' by Rhonda and George Ostertag (Falcon, $14.95) has excellent maps with a spare but clear text that will serve well those who want to explore southern New England's more modest peaks and parks.